James Potter and the Japanese Golfer Joke
by frances.in.newyork
Summary: canon, 2 parts. After Harry is born, Lily makes an attempt to reconcile her family and the Dursley family. A short fish-out-of-water story, as James attempts to deal with the Muggle world in general and the Dursley family in particular.


JKR owns all of these characters, and I hope she would approve of what I've done with them. The photo of Vernon comes from the HP wikia, so it should be clear for use.

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The biggest problem, as they saw it then, was that neither James nor Lily could drive a car. Lily knew that she had a nephew, Dudley, and she hoped to introduce baby Harry to his Aunt Petunia's family. Apart from James and Lily themselves, the Dursleys were the only family Harry had, and a boy should know his family. Lily understood that Petunia would never consent to call on the Potters. If they were going to reconcile they were going to have to go to her sister.

This is where the trouble with driving came in. Lily was well aware of her sister's feelings concerning Magic, and if they had any hope of reforming a family bond, the magic would need to take backstage when they saw each other. And though as family he could be exempted from the Statute of Secrecy, Lily doubted Petunia would ever agree to tell her husband about the Magical World. If anything would ruin all hopes from the outset, it would be an "abnormal" arrival.

But how many ways were there to arrive at Number Four Privet Drive that Petunia would not find alarming? James and Lily had discussed the problem, but in the end they were forced to conclude that there was only one option. They needed to drive a Muggle car up Privet Drive, and park it in the Dursleys' driveway.

"Don't Muggles have buses too?" James had asked, quite reasonably. Lily, having first-hand experience with Muggle transportation was able to explain the trouble with Muggle buses.

"Muggle buses don't work like the Knight Bus, though, dear. They only take people between specifically designated bus _stops_. The Muggles usually walk to the nearest bus stop, ride to a stop near their destination, and walk the rest of the way. Petunia lives nearly a mile from the closest Muggle bus stop. Even if I wanted to carry Harry a mile in this weather, Petunia would find it too strange. I'm afraid it would put her off the meeting."

At this, James' face darkened, but he refrained from arguing again that catering to his sister-in-law's irrational feelings in this was excessive. James had never been inclined to grovel for approval from anyone who openly hated him. This attitude had caused some friction between James and Lily when they were still in school. They had argued about Lily's friend Severus. Lily had been upset with James for not giving Severus a chance, but he just couldn't bring himself to be civil to the other boy who would not be civil to him. Besides, Severus was a Slytherin, which got him no benefit of the doubt.

The truth was, as onerous as he found the situation, James really did understand why Lily wanted to do this. If any of the Potters were still around, he wouldn't want a childhood argument to get in the way of introducing them to his son. James' gaze slid back to the baby and he was once again lost in the joy of realizing this was his son! He was a dad! No, Lily had family left and he couldn't get in the way if she wanted to share this miracle with them.

In the end, driving lessons turned out to be unnecessary. Asking around among his friends in the Aurors Office, James eventually got into touch with a ministry employee who had enchanted a car to be self-driving for those frequent occasions when his job forced him to move around Muggle London. The man proved quite willing to rent the vehicle out for a weekend, and with that the Potters were quite ready to accept the invitation Petunia had grudgingly offered for the Potters to join the Dursleys for Saturday dinner.

They might have taken it as a warning that their plans were not destined to go well, when the family awoke on Saturday, and Harry had developed a cough. A quick visit with a Healer confirmed that it was nothing serious, but they didn't want to take a sick baby driving two or three hours* to Surrey and back. In the end, Remus agreed to stay over with Harry, and James and Lily would go ahead. If everything went well, there would be many more such visits in the future, and they didn't want to ruffle any feathers with a last minute cancellation.

There was only once incident during the drive to Surrey. Lily was using the time in the car to list for James things he shouldn't do or say at the Dursley home if he hoped to seem "normal". Most witches and wizards who aren't Muggle-born imagine that appearing to be a Muggle is as simple as wearing Muggle clothes and not pulling a wand. The depth of the cultural divide was far greater than they realized. James hated the lecture, but he suspected that he really might have tried to talk back to the people in the television if she hadn't warned him that it was not a two-way communication device.

So it was while Lily was trying to convince James that they couldn't possibly admit to Petunia that an elf had prepared the baked desert currently resting on the car's back seat, and James was demanding to know whether acting like a Muggle would _often_ require claiming credit for the labour of others, when a traffic patrol officer noticed that Lily, sitting in the driver's seat was arguing with a passenger and apparently not glancing at the road. Intending to give the reckless young lady an earful, he pulled his vehicle into position behind their car and tapped lightly on the siren.

Lily realized as soon as she heard the siren what she had done wrong. She had taken the driver's seat, feeling that she would look more like she was driving the car than James could, since he really didn't know what driving a car should look like. She put her hands back on the wheel, brought her eyes from James back to the road, and instructed the car to pull over to the curb. As it did, she quickly explained to James about the existence traffic cops and their insistence on drivers actually watching where they are going.

When the officer appeared at Lily's window, she passed over the vehicle's papers, temporarily magicked to reflect the Potters as the owners, and her own conjured driver's license. It was then that James really put his foot in it, thinking that as an Auror himself he might be able to get through to the Muggle Auror.

"I'm sorry, sir. We're on our way to meet my in-laws," James grimaced here in a direct plea for the officer's sympathy. It seemed to work, as the man's face softened slightly. James continued, "and I'm afraid that I let myself get distracted. I swear I'll watch the road keenly the rest of the way."

James knew he'd made a mistake when he finished speaking. The officer's face had closed off completely, and he was giving the couple a cold, assessing look. Lily realized her error immediately. She had been in such a hurry as they pulled over to explain the role of traffic enforcement in Muggle society, that she'd forgotten to mention which one of them was supposed to have been driving.

"Have you two been at a bottle, then?"

Lily winced as she realized she might have a way out of this without Obliviating an officer on duty, which she'd prefer to keep as a last resort. She'd never even had to use the charm before, though she was confident she knew how. She only hoped James would forgive her. She glanced quickly at James, giving what she hoped he understood as an apologetic expression. He was wearing his poker face that he perfected over years of claiming not to know anything about various Marauder pranks, but as he didn't really know what he was supposed to be pretending to have meant, it wasn't really coming off very well. She also noticed that his hand had moved into position to draw his wand. He might be off-balance, but he landed on his feet. If he Stupefied the officer, she would definitely have to Obliviate the man. Lily decided it would be better to bolster the officer's impression that James was drunk than to let him figure out that James didn't know which was the driver's seat. She turned back to the law man, who was now fairly hostile.

"I'm sorry. My husband and my sister haven't yet met, but she has made it clear in her letters that she has already decided to hate him. It's difficult, but now that we're starting a family we just couldn't continue to stay away. James understands," she reached behind without looking to rest a hand on her husband's knee. She hoped he really did understand, "but the situation is very difficult for him and I'm afraid he indulged a bit in advance. If you let us go, I'll drive more carefully and James will definitely not be behind the wheel today."

The officer gave her a long look, but confirmed that the woman seemed completely sober. It was harder to tell about the man sitting over on the far seat, but his expression was confused and slightly upset. Yes, he was clearly drunk. As there was nothing illegal about that as long as he wasn't driving, the officer eventually returned to his original plan of giving the young lady his best lecture about road safety, careful driving, and the endangerment of others. After meeting the couple he included a bit about policing James' access to the car keys whenever he's been at the bottle. He suspected this man was a habitual drunk. You could tell because they learned to carry themselves much more normally with enough experience, but that didn't mean they weren't impaired.

Lily promised to be careful, and swore that James would never drive drunk. Particularly true since he had no plans to take driving lessons. James simply sat there and tried not to let his increasing irritation show.

Finally, the officer declined to write a citation, but gave Lily another stern glare before sending the Potters on their way. As the car pulled back into traffic, instructed to continue to Surrey, Lily kept her hands on the steering wheel and her eyes on the road in front.

James spoke up. "You essentially told that Muggle that I'm a drunk and a coward, who can't meet a hostile sister-in-law without a few stiff drinks," he complained.

"Yes dear, I'm sorry about that."

"And Muggle cars are driven from the seat on the right. The seat with that big round bit."

"Yes dear, the steering wheel.** I'm sorry I forgot to mention that."

"Yes, well… and we are going to tell your sister that I baked the tart, even though I didn't."

"That would be easiest, but we can't mention elves at all. She knows I'm hopeless in the kitchen."

…

"You know, you're lucky I'm in love with you."

"Yes dear, I love you too." Lily, finally pulling her eyes from the road met James' gaze and they shared an understanding look. It had already been a stressful day, and would likely get worse, but they were still in it together.

The traffic cop had gone off in a different direction, which was a good thing. He would certainly have written Lily a citation if he had seen the kiss.

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Author's Note:

I am trying to keep the story completely consistent with canon, which is why Harry developed that cough. My original plan was to bring him along but have things get so out of control that Vernon and Petunia would have to get Obliviated before the Potters left, leaving Vernon able to believe he's never met Harry at the beginning of the first story. That could be fun too, but in the end I went with this.

I'm not sure I like the inclusion of the elf, since there's no in-canon evidence that the Potters would have had an elf. I tried to leave it unclear that the elf in question was actually the Potters'.

I welcome any nit-picking people want to offer with respect to British culture and language, Harry Potter canon or anything else that might be wrong with what I've written.

It wasn't my intention to make either James or Lily look stupid, and I hope they didn't come across that way. I wouldn't have made him so unaware of the Muggle world if there had been a Muggle-born among the Marauders, but he and Lily didn't start dating until 7th year, and there has been a war on since then. Part two takes place at the Dursley's and will finish the story.

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Footnotes:

*The round-trip distance is based on the starting point of central London, as that's where many real ministry buildings are located, not Godric's Hollow, which per JKR's out-of-canon statement is in the West Country of England. That would be a much longer drive, (5-6 hours round trip minimum,) and an unlikely place to pick up the car.

**I double-checked, and the knight bus does indeed have a steering wheel. From Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban:

_'You 'ave this one,' Stan whispered, shoving Harry's trunk under the bed right behind the driver, who was sitting in an armchair in front of the steering wheel._

But there's also this:

_Ernie didn't seem to have mastered the use of a steering wheel. The Knight Bus kept mounting the pavement, but it didn't hit anything;_

James would certainly know about the Knight Bus, as magical parents would be irresponsible to raise children unaware of how to get home in an emergency. I decided that since the Knight Bus _is_ for emergency transport and is less useful for those who can Apparate, it's likely that most adult witches and wizards have never ridden it. Further, if James had been aboard, well, if what passes for a professional driver in the Magical World hasn't mastered the wheel, I doubt that seeing Ernie's example, particularly in an emergency situation, would have stuck with James as much of a learning experience.


End file.
